


Certain Things to Accept - Part IV

by Persephone



Series: Willing to Take the Risk [15]
Category: Valentine's Day (2010)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Rare Fandoms, Rare Pairings, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 19:12:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1480885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone/pseuds/Persephone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When no answers are forthcoming, travel. Cecelia calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Holden had already left for the airport when he woke up. There was a note telling him to call him as soon as he met with Cecelia. He’d entered the kitchen to feed his fresh carrot-apple juice kick and had taken a moment to carefully read it.

Taking his glass of juice with him, he stepped out onto the patio and saw the pool cleaning service packing up their equipment to go. He raised a hand in greeting and got a faint reply in Spanish. 

Then he sat on the wooden railing, facing the house instead of the ocean, and sat staring at the structure. The atmosphere around him was somehow quiet, the ambience muted. Like the sound-blocking effect before a storm. He took a long sip of juice.

Today, he’d call Cecelia if she didn’t call. It wouldn’t make for a great scenario if Holden, expectant in New York, returned and they were exactly where they had left off. 

Whatever her game was, she needed to let him in so he could start playing.

He hadn’t finished the thought when from somewhere inside his house, his phone started chirping. 

Slowly getting up, he left his glass on the railing and entered the house to retrieve it. When picked up the phone, he knew even without having to see the called ID, that it was Cecelia.

~*~

Cecelia had arranged for them to have afternoon tea at the Beverly Wilshire. Looking over the notes he had made reading Soiree’s wedding book so far, he was sure he could have an intelligent conversation about the wedding, no problems. 

At exactly five minutes to four, he pulled up in front of the valet at the hotel. With a couple of cars ahead of him, he took the opportunity to give his reflection a last minute look-over.

Tipping the rearview downward, he checked the lines of his brown linen suit, checking the collar and cuffs of the sea blue dress shirt he had underneath, making sure that absolutely everything was in order before he stepped into the most important meeting of his offseason. He felt confident and relaxed, and supremely thankful that Holden wasn’t in L.A.

Holden’s timing couldn’t have been better. He couldn’t imagine being as relaxed knowing Holden was anxiously, or angrily, perhaps was more likely, waiting for him in his office for a post-mortem. Holden’s departure had been without an indication of how seeing Alastair again at the event had gone. But he would take an absence of overt anger from Holden as something. Two distracted and work filled days in a different city while he did this, if you asked him, were just what the doctor would have ordered.

He pulled up as it got to his turn. Putting the car in park, he reached across the passenger seat and grabbed the sable leather bound planner’s book that had been sitting in Holden’s home office for the last few weeks. Also known as Cecelia’s book. He reached for the door handle and got out.

While taking the ticket from the valet, he noticed a couple of things happening on the busy afternoon street.

The black SUV with his bodyguards had parked itself at the corner of Rodeo Drive. And at this point he felt really bad for the guys. He’d mentioned again to Holden that they really could let them go, pointing out that there didn’t seem to have been that much negative reaction even on the internet to all their cavorting in Johnston. But Holden had told him that the company would let him know when they could end his detail. Which he thought was a great response by the company, clearly wanting to keep taking Holden’s money for a rinse.

On the opposite end of the street was the navy TMZ sports car—an Audi Quattro, Holden had informed him, a car built for the chase. It was cruising on by with a guy with a telescope camera lens lodged in the back seat. 

It truly perplexed him that so much media resources could be dedicated to simply following him around, but Michelle had assured him that she and Davey kept up with the juicy fictitious details of his life quite avidly on TMZ. He presumed that the fast moving car was gathering evidence to support the story of his impending wedding.

Putting it all from his mind, he walked around the front of the Navigator toward the entrance of the hotel. Without a pause, he took a quiet, fortifying breath, and walked in.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

Seated on a small Regency sofa, Cecelia was smiling as he approached.

It was neither a smile of pleasure nor one of a commitment to eventually be pleased. As far as the smile spoke, it said simply that she was happy to have his company for afternoon tea. 

Her hands were clasped over her crossed knees and her expression was open, and yet impassive. And her eyes, as he approached, were squarely on him.

 _And here we go,_ he thought before he could stop himself.

He went up and greeted her warmly, kissing both her cheeks, which she proffered politely.

“How nice to see you again, Sean,” she said lightly into the air beside his cheek. “You look exceptionally well.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking the sofa across from her. He sat forward, unbuttoning his jacket, and placed her binder on the seat next to him. “You as well.”

“Thank you. It seems that visiting your family was very good for you.”

“It was,” he said, nodding.

“And how did Holden like it?” she asked politely.

“Oh, he loved it. He had to be dragged back to L.A.”

She lifted her head in an “Ah,” gesture, though it left him with the sensation that she hadn’t actually heard what he had just said.

“He always did like snow,” she said, placidly. “Though he was loathed to go in it. We had absolutely no success teaching him to ski. Perhaps you could do better.”

About to turn for her book, he hesitated, shifting his eyes back to her. There so much wrong with her sentence—why Holden had enjoyed Johnston, the idea of teaching Holden to ski, a thing he would never attempt in his right mind—that he didn’t know where to begin replying her.

However she was no longer looking at him and had idly lifted a finger at the waiters’ station in the corner.

Instantly, a waiter appeared at his side and began welcoming him to the hotel and to their afternoon tea. While he returned the greetings and was favored with a recital on the pleasures he was about to experience from their teas and scones, he stole another look at Cecelia.

Before the waiter’s arrival he had been about to hand over the binder, and he was expecting that she had seen that as well. He therefore expected to find her looking, perhaps even dreadfully, at the book.

Instead she was staring at him. Inquisitively.

Caught at it, he quickly smiled and tried to pass it off. But she didn’t seem discomposed in the least. She just politely smiled back, then shifted her attention back to the waiter, sat back a little more comfortably and began listening along.

His eyes didn’t leave her. What had that been all about? That look. Irrepressibly, her silence of the past three days slowly wrapped around him once more, the same heaviness that had blanketed his morning.

The litany of teas, like naming flowers in a garden, rained from the waiter down on top of them. Unsure of what was going on with her, he was only half hearing the waiter, his attention partially on her.

Something wasn’t right. 

Her lack of an immediate return phone call had been worrying enough, but now he had to add strange looks as well.

The waiter, whose name tag said Robards, finished his recital and unfurled their menus before them, but they both shook their heads. He ordered the Gentleman’s Tea, which Robards duly noted was an excellent choice, and she chose a pot of White Tangerine Dreams. Robards took their menus and told them he would be right back.

Robards was instantly back with a mate and conversation was no longer possible as with a flurry of understated activity, their teapots, tea cups, saucers, silverware, napkins, dessert caddies, honey pots, milk, cut lemons and a myriad other aesthetically pleasing small things were brought and laid out across the rosewood table.

While Cecelia watched the activity with a routine eye, the waiters’ movements impeded his view of her. So he took the opportunity to look around the room.

The tea room at the Beverly Wilshire was quietly clinking away. At four o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, it was an even more obvious and locked away oasis for people with no desire, and the privilege to not deal with the rest of the world.

Here, one year later, were the sets he had almost let put a permanent wedge between him and Holden. The people who, upon entering their world, had wielded enough influence on his own intelligence to confused him into believing that the beautiful and lost soul he had fallen so wildly in love with, was, on a fundamental level, no different and no deeper than this.

He hoped Holden could eventually truly accept that his stupid, insecure behavior last summer hadn’t been about anything Alastair or Cecelia had done. Holden had warned him way back on that morning in the show after Alastair had first called, and out of inexperience he had dismissed it. But he knew now that Holden was absolutely right. This fake, uptight world was never going to sit comfortably with who he was.

Half their gazes had latched onto him the moment he had walked through the doors, and he had to wonder whether Cecelia had intentionally brought him here for a home field advantage. Scratch that, he knew the answer to that question.

Service laid, the second waiter departed and Robards was deftly measuring and scooping Oolong and White Tangerine tea leaves into two small French presses.

He didn’t need to look to know that Cecelia’s eyes were back on him.

This time, he didn’t look at her.

But while the waiter poured hot water into the presses, he did look, to see her finally move her eyes to her Soirée planner’s book.

And now he waited to get the customary, courteously dismissive look that was her manner toward things that irritated her.

What he got instead was a wholly disinterested glance.

Her eyes had landed fully on the binder, sitting neatly by his side, but they showed no response, no feelings one way or the other. No flicker of anything at all.

After which she merely went back to watching their teas being prepared.

Elbows on his knees, he held his balled fists to his lips and followed her in watching the tea. If he hadn’t been worried before... 

He took a long and silent breath. Her phone call that morning had been light in tone, like her welcoming attitude now. But standing in the clear pearl light of his bedroom looking out at the ocean, he hadn’t felt anything close to lightness. The reality of his wedding, on her timetable and ultimately at her behest, had settled on him to a sobering degree.

It was their very first meeting together, without Holden or Alastair, and it was important to him that he get it right. He was there to defend his sweetheart’s, and his own, basic right to wed as they saw fit, definitely. But he had also come prepared to hear her objections over perceived slights. He was prepared to have a real conversation with her, if she would let him. 

Aside from not being willing to tell her she wasn’t “allowed” to participate in the wedding in any way, he was ready to hear her frustrations over Holden’s rejection of her efforts and Holden’s continued silence towards them. He was prepared to have a real conversation with her, if she would let him.

Because like it or not, there was no denying who she was. No escaping what she could accomplish on any given day or the nightmare she could unleash on them if she felt Holden was being too casual about any of it. And he really did believe that she wanted to help. But she had done it in a typically Wilson manner, independently and defensively, and seeming baffled that anyone had gotten upset.

What he wanted was for her to know that by his very presence, one of them was prepared to listen.

What he hadn’t been prepared for, was _disinterest._ And she certainly wasn’t faking it for his benefit.

Done with pouring the hot water, Robards began pressing their teas. Cecelia was waiting with perfect self-possession, and, in a slightly surreal moment, he found himself wondering whether she would have as much sugar as her son. Or whether she took sugar at all. 

Robards lifted his hands from the presses, entreating them to give the leaves time to steep, then with a smile, told them to enjoy their teas, and left.

Cecelia reached for a silver tong and tipped it toward the dessert caddy. He lifted a small plate and was served scones from the caddy. He thanked her, set down the plate, and picked up his knife.

“Scottish oat is a great choice,” she said conversationally, serving herself some strawberry tarts. “It’s Holden’s favorite. The accompanying preserve is also quite delicious, made from a sweet wine from Virginia.”

“Yeah, I figured it was a must,” he replied, beginning to quarter his scone. “I’m going to try and pick up on what they do here, see if I can’t throw it in the next time I make him some.”

Her eyes, which had been on his actions, rose to his face. Her eyebrows had lifted. “You bake?”

“Yeah, and cook. To be honest with you,” he joked, “I think it’s why Holden likes me so much.” 

Then he lifted a shoulder and stopped talking as if not wanting to bore her with details.

She had gone very still, her dessert plate hovering above knee. 

She seemed torn between wanting to ask for an elaboration on what her son might actually like and not wanting to show any more interest than necessary. 

He put down the knife and picked up a spreader and began spreading first a layer of cream, then preserve on each section of scone.

He peeked, and her eyes were back on him.

“You…seem quite adept at this,” she said.

He didn’t respond for a second. Was she really surprised that he could cut and butter a scone?

“My mother likes to travel,” he told her. “She wasn’t going to stand for us kids swinging from the rafters and embarrassing her so we had to pick up on some manners.”

Her expression tightened slightly on the words “pick up,” and it seemed she wasn’t sure whether to assume he was kidding at having to “pick up” manners, and appeared to be leaning towards presuming he wasn’t.

Boy, was he glad Holden wasn’t here.

He bit into his scone, and it was just as perfect as you pleased. He gave her an approving nod. 

“How’re the tarts?” he asked.

“They’re always delicious here.”

He nodded and finished eating his scone. She delicately finished her strawberry tart, set down her plate and offered him some tea. 

He held up his cup and saucer to her, and when she poured, took a small sip. She waited for his response.

First allowing for the wine-like flavors to seep into his tastebuds, and surprised by it—Robards hadn’t been kidding about how good their stuff was—he gave her a small smile. She nodded and switched pots, pouring some for herself.

She didn’t use any sugar.

She picked up and sipped her tea. After the third or so sip, the tip of her tongue snaked out and licked the corner of her mouth, making him blink with surprise.

She had done it exactly like Holden, and he didn’t know how he stopped himself from laughing. It was so incongruous with her perfectly polished demeanor that for a moment he fully expected her to eye him and smile in a rare moment of self-consciousness. Like her son would.

But all she did was softly blow into her cup, and take another sip.

Then advising himself not to procrastinate any further, he set down his cup and turned aside and picked up her book. Without fanfare, he slid it onto a corner of the crowded center table and laced his fingers back up. He looked straight at her.

“Point taken,” he said.

She didn’t look at the table. Just swallowed her sip of tea. Then delicately, she lifted a shoulder.

“I only wanted to help.”

“That you did,” he told her truthfully. “You got us going on it. And truthfully, I liked everything you did. I thought it was all perfect.”

“Thank you,” she said simply. Then, after a beat, “I hope Holden isn’t too upset.”

“He’s pretty upset.”

Neither her eyes nor her demeanor changed. 

Simply lowering her cup, she used a manicured finger to carefully brush aside her silvery bangs, shaking them out of her eyes and successfully revealing more of those blue gray eyes that gave away nothing.

“He has a lot on his plate,” she said serenely. “I can hardly get him to return my calls.”

His response died unvoiced. He couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic. 

Until he remembered that unlike Alastair, she never spoke ill of her son. That her relationship with Holden ran cool, not hot. Problem was, her self-control never allowed her to speak her feelings at all. She just smiled, nodded, and then did whatever she wanted.

Not entirely unlike someone he could name, but wouldn’t.

“I think you should know he was gonna close down the account,” he told her, nodding at the book. “He’s not afraid of that.”

“Oh?”

He nodded.

“Even after nixing everything, the schedules, the arrangements, the overall design, he was going to shut down the account and start from scratch.”

She waited, her eyes calmly on her cup as she blew and took another sip.

“What changed his mind?” she eventually asked.

He shrugged. “I told him there’s no need. That we’d be going backwards to when we had no plans instead of forward on an existing one, however we came by it.”

She tilted her head minutely, maybe even gratefully. 

“I said we could do whatever we want for that day,” he added, intentionally. “That no one’s interfering with our plans.”

She took another sip of her tea. “To which he said?”

“Well, he tends to believe me when I tell him things,” he told her quietly.

She became silent. And yet it seemed she was listening to something else.

“Which is why I’m gonna say, Cecelia, that you gotta back off a little on this wedding.”

She said nothing.

“What would really help in the coming months, honestly speaking, is if we got no more surprises from you or Alastair. You’ve both got my number, if you’re having a tough time getting Holden to call you back, please give me a call.”

She was listening to _him._

Not to his words, but to him talking. He could see it now.

“Like I said, I appreciate everything you did. Not everyone’s lucky enough to have their folks around. Cracking the whip or not. But it’s important you understand that Holden’s the one calling the shots. Not you or Alastair.”

“Nor yourself?”

He stopped and looked at her. “I’ll do whatever Holden says.”

She lifted her chin in an almost invisible movement, and it was as if she had confirmed a ton of things on her mind.

He could almost hear her unspoken, _“Thank you, Sean.”_

He just kept staring at her.

He was definitely missing something here. 

Taking what was left of his tea with him while she finished hers, he sat back in his sofa, crossing his ankles under the table, and pretended to be engrossed in his cup.

She seemed...distracted in a way that didn’t match her reality. Even without him dropping Holden’s ultimatum. All the evidence so far made him think that frankly, she wasn’t all that interested in their wedding ceremony after all, which wasn’t possible.

It was dawning on him that he might not be seeing all the players on the field. 

“Anyway,” he said slowly. “We’re heading back to Miami pretty soon, and from there, Spain.”

“And the plans for Spain? That is, if Holden wouldn’t mind me asking? Do you expect to implement changes there?”

“We haven’t discussed that yet. We’re just trying to see what’s what.”

She nodded, then set her cup down and offered him a fresh cup for some of her White Tangerine. He accepted, while she made herself a cup of his Oolong. Then sitting forward, she invited him to share with her some ideas, if he had any as a baker, on which of the desserts might go best with what teas.

She wasn’t faking it. She had no interest in Soirée or any changes in their wedding details. Giving it a hard thought, he could only conclude that with the date in place and Soirée on the case, she felt that her part in the madness was done. 

His theory was only bolstered when, as they tried a second tier of desserts on the caddy, she began talking to him about his foundation. How Alastair was so proud of the work Holden had done so far in putting together an experienced board of directors, and how her son always had been a natural for humanitarian work.

And she continued to listen carefully to each word that came out of his mouth.

And he knew to watch himself. Because despite everything he had told Holden, and despite taking responsibility for his own actions, he never forgot that she had been the chief architect of his misery last summer: never finding enough negative stereotypes about football players to opine about at those cocktail parities, nor enough handsome professional gay men to parade before Holden as a viable alternative on any given level to having him in their family. 

Right through to her masterwork, that dick Darren Moran.

He wondered now what she was looking for. Acceptance of him, or chinks in his armor?

When he saw it was quarter to five on the wall clock behind her, he smiled and refused her last offering of dessert. He had planned on staying an hour or less, in spite of her etiquette knowing not to overburden her time.

Placing his napkin on the table, she took the sign to indicate that he was through, and sat back as well.

“Well, Sean. It certainly has been a revelation.”

Also not the most comforting of remarks.

“Thanks for taking the time to see me, and for the delicious tea.”

“Of course.”

Just as he was about to get up, something caught her eye from behind him at the doors. And suddenly, a stunning smile lit up her face.

And just like that, there was Holden’s mother.

For a moment he couldn’t take his eyes off her, as he hardly ever could when she genuinely smiled. Then he looked over his shoulder to see her best friend Leona coming towards them. Leona, the slightly forward friend who had spent most of last summer openly flirting with him.

He stood up and stepped back from the sofa, turning to smile down at Cecelia. She pointed at the book. 

“Aren’t you going to take that with you? You said you’re keeping the account.”

“That’s okay,” he said, while Leona arrived and settled herself in an armchair next to Cecelia, blinking up at him. “I don’t think he likes seeing it around.” 

He lifted a hand in greeting to Leona. “Hi, Leona. Nice to see you again.”

“Why, hi there, Sean. Goodness, I’d almost forgotten how tall you are.”

He down looked at her, wondering why she always gave him the uncomfortable impression that she was enjoying a joke at his expense.

Smiling beatifically up at him, she asked, “Aren’t you staying for an afternoon cocktail? What else comes after tea, right?” she added, smiling at Cecelia, who smiled back.

“Thanks, but I gotta head back,” he said slowly. “Long day.”

Cecelia stretched her lips at him, the same smile that had welcomed him, and he left them and made his way around the sofa and back towards the lobby.

He didn’t breathe easy until he was standing outside in front of the hotel.

Handing the valet his ticket, he stood under the stand’s umbrella rubbing his temples. For the first time since she had sent out their invites, he couldn’t shake the feeling that a storm was indeed coming.

But Jesus, was he glad he wasn’t supposed to be going to Holden’s office after this. A phone call would be taxing enough.

~*~

“How’d it go?”

“It went well,” he said without hesitation.

“Did you give her back her book?”

“Yeah.”

Holden was silent on the line.

“Where are you?” he asked Holden.

“At JP Morgan. We just finished a conference call.”

Then Holden was silent again.

He knew that despite everything, Holden really didn’t want to ask too much, didn’t want the details that would get him upset, and yet felt he had to. He saved him the dilemma.

“When are you coming back?”

“Tomorrow evening. I miss you so much,” Holden said hoarsely. “You’re all I could think about all day.”

“When you’re supposed to be talking finance?”

“Uh huh.”

“Makes sense,” he said warmly.

Holden couldn’t seem to do much more than let out a breath, not laugh the way he had intended. But considering the state in which Holden had left, talking at all was a vast improvement.

Sitting in his Navigator in a shop parking lot a few blocks up from the Beverly Wilshire, he stared out at the shoppers and pedestrians filling up early evening Rodeo Drive. He had him on speaker through the car’s Bluetooth system and Holden’s voice was low and somber, and in stereo. Every word Holden spoke went through him like he was being groped. And once again he wished so much that Holden could let his parents do whatever they wanted. It always seemed to him that they had so few months out of the year together. He wanted them to be lying with their bodies pressed together, tangled up and watching a movie on his couch in Malibu. And he wanted it to be October all over again.

He touched the steering wheel he had his forearm draped over. “Tell me something good, Wilson.”

Holden let out another breath, stalled completely, then stammered that he was still in the conference room and could he wait until he got back to the hotel that night? Because he had actually been thinking up stuff and that this time he was going to blow his socks off with his new phone sex skills. And so could he wait?

He quietly laughed his head off.

~*~


	3. Chapter 3

“So how does it work again?”

Craig held up both his BlackBerry and iPhone, while through the jet’s cabin windows the evening sun washed its rays across his face.

“You get a second number,” Craig repeated. “Then you pick up to five numbers and set up call forwarding for those numbers. It doesn’t even indicate that it’s forwarding. That is, you don’t get a flash on the first line. Pretty basic stuff.”

Yet he had never thought about it. He stared thoughtfully at the phones, the soft but relentless whine of the jet’s engines a perfect accompaniment to his mental plans.

“So all their calls…”

“Go to just the one phone,” Craig confirmed. “No daily interruptions. You can leave the second phone permanently on silent of course, but even better, set it to look like it’s roaming. Or anything, really. This way, you also don’t have to worry about giving everyone you know a new number. It’s total psychological freedom.”

He nodded, impressed. Giving out a new number had been his main stumbling block. He hadn’t wanted to inconvenience Sean’s family, and Anne and Wil especially. But this way, no one important, including Kate Hazeltine, needed to change his contact information.

Craig slipped the work BlackBerry back into his jacket and let the iPhone drop into his brief. He noted the sequence, wondering just who Craig had put on permanent call forwarding to the iPhone. Craig then picked up and went back to reading an updated version of the project analysis report from JP Morgan.

Closing his eyes, he relaxed into the soft leather seats, stretching his back in the one he was seated in and flexing his stockinged toes in the one across from him. 

After two days away, he was very happy to report that he was feeling a whole lot better. Much more himself.

Their JP Morgan deal was getting close to a conclusion, a finalization of the discussions that had taken him to New York in the fall. Back when he had been missing Sean so much, he had spent most of his days simply trying not to fall sick. 

That turned out to have not been a phase. 

Neither, incidentally, was awkward phone sex with Sean. _One_ of them sure wasn’t getting it right.

But after two head-clearing days, he could have kicked himself. He couldn’t believe that of all the things he should have been focused on since Sean’s return, since their hard-won reconciliation in Johnston, his parents was what he’d gone with.

His parents, for goodness sake.

As nervous as he had been that last day in Johnston, the thought of coming back to one unpleasant moment after another with them making him almost ill, yet since returning all he had done was react to every little thing they did.

So his mother had almost made him a wedding. And he had humiliated himself before his dad. All bitter lessons to experience. But now it was time to put it all behind him. 

He really didn’t know or care what was going on with his father. Maybe his father had changed. Maybe everything that had taken place on Hanan’s boat had been genuine. So good for him. But the texts had stopped, and that to him was a more than welcome development.

And maybe all his mother really had intended was a misguided attempt at helping like Sean insisted. Fine. But everybody could go back to their corners now.

Time to pick up from where he left off and move on with Sean.

He had a real family now. One which thoughts of didn’t cause him confusion and pain. And this evening he was going home to the shy quarterback who had given it to him. 

It was why he was getting a second line to siphon his parents’ calls. He was progressing to an improved version of the system he had used, for years, to successfully keep them from constantly butting into his personal life.

It was really just psychologically less stressful this way. It was really that simple.

And as to the existence of the phone line itself, neither parent need be the wiser, and he’d be much, much happier.

And there, Sean would have his win-win scenario. 

—

They landed in L.A. to clear evening skies. He said goodbye to Craig on the tarmac and hello to Redmond inside the terminal. As he got into the Town Car curbside, he informed Redmond that they would be stopping at the florist shop near his condo.

Inside the car, Redmond looked straight ahead and took the instruction with a “Yes, sir...” and an ear-to-ear smile.

Which, settling diagonally from him the back seat, he saw. He watched the expression from his angle in the rearview as they pulled into the airport exit lanes before asking Redmond what that was all about.

“What’s what all about, sir?”

“I’m sorry, that’s not a smile on your face?”

“Ah, don’t mind me, sir.”

But he was still looking and the smile was only getting wider. He stopped looking and pulled his brief toward him. “Now you’re just being annoying.”

Redmond quietly chuckled.

Twenty minutes later they had pulled up to the florist and sure enough, Redmond was still having trouble keeping his expression neutral. Hand on the door handle, he couldn’t make himself open it.

He shot a quick look at the shop’s entrance. “Don’t make me feel self-conscious about this, Redmond. I’ve done this a million times before.”

“No, sir,” Redmond said grandly. As in, grandfatherly. “That is not my intention.”

But it was already too late, of course. 

He _had_ done this a million times before, but always mechanically, for whomever he was dating at the time. They both knew he had never had a sweetheart. 

Never mind that he had introduced Sean to Redmond, actually sitting in the glow of Redmond’s mostly inexplicable happiness was a level of reality that was all too vivid. It gently brought home the fact of how embarrassingly foolish he had been for years, how he hadn’t been fooling anyone but himself over what had been happening to him every time he disappeared all summer long into Malibu.

He dropped his hand from the handle and tossed it up. “Now are you happy?”

Redmond did in fact look very happy. “I haven’t had a chance to congratulate you on your engagement, sir. And I’d like to do so now, if I may.”

He took a breath and gave him a grudging look. “Thanks.”

Redmond nodded once.

Grasping the door handle, he this time opened the door. 

“I’ll be right back,” he muttered, getting out.

~*~

His condo was wafting in aromas of sugar and oats when he entered. Shedding his jacket and brief along the way, he followed the divine scents into the kitchen, he stood spellbound at the entrance at sight that greeted him.

Sean was standing at the cooking range, baking, or doing whatever people who stood at cooking ranges for long periods of time did. He was poking at a tray of freshly baked goodies, almond oat bars it looked like, next to which sat a small jar of raspberry preserve, which was being used to top the bars.

He forgot the goodies almost immediately in favor of just staring at Sean.

It hardly ever seemed possible that this was his life. That the football player he’d spent so many nights shaking over in the pages of Sports Illustrated could actually be standing in his kitchen baking him Scottish oat bars in a pair of L.B. Evans house moccasins.

The sight reminded him, incongruently, of Sean standing in a corner of Anne’s kitchen, begging him for forgiveness for having carried dark things in his heart. For having been afraid of them. 

And he wondered, not for the last time, how Sean had had such faith in them to begin with. How, in the storm of emotions that had assailed him after Sean had come out, after he had walked out of his house after coming in from the airport that night, how Sean could have been so sure. He only remembered the uncertainty that had taken over everything after that. How he had struggled to look deep inside himself and had utterly been unable to. 

The only think that he had seen shining like a beacon in all the confusion had been Sean’s steady light. He had made himself go back there by simply following it, and stunned to see Sean sitting so easily in Paula’s back garden like he was at a picnic, when he had been in torment for weeks.

 _I’ll take care of you,_ Sean had told him then. 

What he had always known was that Sean’s strength, even when he was feeling weak, was that Sean had a real heart. Broken or whole, it knew how to carry on. 

And it was what was going to carry them forward, past his own sorry family life.

Sean turned and gave him a serene look. 

“Hey, beautiful.”

“Hi.”

“Welcome home. I thought you’d never get back.”

“Funny,” he said hoarsely, clearing his throat. “I thought the same thing the minute I left here two days ago.”

Sean smiled and slipped him a look that nearly melted his groin. 

Then, sliding the spatula he was holding under a row of the oat bars, Sean smoothly moved the bars onto a white serving dish. And he watched, mesmerized, as the action went without a hitch. How exactly that worked, he’d never know. How many times did he try that in the mornings with just an egg, sunny side up, always ending up with outrageous results.

“What’d you got there?” Sean asked.

Remembering what he was holding, the bud of which had nudged his hip the moment he walked into the shop and out of Redmond’s not-smiling smile, he looked down at the obscenely huge creamy white peony in his hand.

Holding it up, he said, “You have no idea the mental torture I had to ride back in with this thing in my hand.”

Sean wiped his hands on the apron around his hips before untying and laying it on the counter. “Looks innocent enough.”

“Not even.” He waved it at him. “I’ll trade you for one of those bars. Scottish oat, right?”

“It’s what my baby loves.”

He smiled to himself. Score, like, a bazillion points for him.

Sean had turned and leaned against the counter, and was crooking his finger at him. He went over, and was about to lean against the range when Sean quickly grabbed and gently steered him toward the counter instead. Which, now that he thought about it, was probably a safer proposition.

So, leaning against the counter, he slipped his arm around Sean’s waist, pulling him close, and lifted the peony with a smile. Sean held still as he stuck the giant bud into the neck of his T-shirt. And then he watched with rapt attention as Sean turned and buried his nose in the soft petals and took a long, deep breath.

He wanted to say something, but all he could think was how the presence of the flower made Sean’s eyes seem even softer, his beard even sexier.

And then he caught himself and almost laughed out loud. 

Romanticism was contagious? Scary. Redmond would have a field day.

Sean turned and picked up one of the oat bars, and tightening his arm around Sean’s waist, he stroked his torso, loving the way Sean’s body always reacted to that. He opened his mouth when Sean brought the bar up to it.

Sean nudged it against his lip, and before Sean could ask him to open up, he opened his mouth and swallowed it whole.

Sean blinked in disbelief, and maybe a little bit of terror. He almost laughed with his mouth full. 

“I’ve had bigger,” he whispered as a reminder, making Sean shade a little darker. “Come on, gimme another.”

“I think I’ll keep my fingers, thanks.”

He smiled. Then he brought his face against Sean’s, sniffing down the side to his jaw. “You smell like peonies and raspberry preserves,” he told him. “Am I dreaming?” Sean was smiling. He felt it as he brought his hand up to Sean’s face, slowly stimulating himself scratching the beard that excited him so.

Sean made low jungle cat noises, making him laugh, and then he caught his breath as Sean turned his lips to his hand and kissed his palm. 

Watching him, he stroked his fingers across the mustache he loved to kiss each morning before leaving for work. Traced the outline of the lips that never failed to part for his tongue. Sean caught his roving finger between his lips, kissing its tip ever so softly. He watched as Sean performed the action and let out a shaking breath, enduring the fire that was starting in his stomach.

“I have to say something,” he said softly.

“Your timing couldn’t be any worse.”

“Sean, I’m serious. Listen to me.”

Sean straightened, wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled back to give him his full attention.

He leaned back against the counter and sighed. “I’m sorry I’ve been out of it.”

“Apology accepted,” Sean said immediately.

“No, listen. First I want to be sure that my mother didn’t give you any trouble.”

Sean lifted a shoulder. “What could she really say?”

He was silent, gripping the edge of the counter by his hip and trying not to have his gaze go any higher than Sean’s mouth.

There was something unexpressed about Sean’s responses.

But try as he might he couldn’t make himself ask Sean what it was. The last thing he wanted to hear was how his mother had made Sean feel like a new piece of furniture in his father’s house she didn’t wish to comment on. The way she would his father’s latest partner.

Pushing the sour feeling from his stomach, he was quiet for some moments. Then he said, “I don’t want to talk about either of them again.”

“Sweetheart...”

“Until later, Sean. Until I absolutely have to. Right now I just want it to be you and me. Like it used to be.”

Sean’s arms around him tightened. “It always is, Holden.”

He tightened his lips, then looked up at him, then nodded.

“You believe me, don’t you?”

Again he nodded.

Sean lowered his head. “Seal it with a kiss, or it doesn’t mean anything.”

Around his smile, he turned and dropped a kiss on his mouth. Sean moaned softly. 

“You don’t have anywhere to be right now, do you?” Sean muttered, bringing his hand around from behind him and beginning to unbutton his vest. “Cause the last time, it was amazing. You... in my mouth...”

He slanted him a heated look.

“And then you had to leave.”

“Well, how about we try it again and see what happens,” he whispered.

Sean freed his belt from its buckle. “Good answer.”

His button came undone. And while he held onto him, his fly was unzipped and Sean’s big, hard hand entered the front of his boxers. His toes curled hard, and he had to grip him to stay upright. He squeezed his eyes to endure it, then placed his head against Sean’s temple, wondering why he could never get used to it. If he felt for where Sean’s hand was now, he would ejaculate. And as Sean started squeezing him, rubbing the tip of his middle finger over his slit, he was already trembling and about to do so now. 

He quickly covered Sean’s hand with his own, tightening in an attempt to pull back, while Sean only pushed harder into him. “S-Sean,” he chocked, slipping his hand up and gripping a fistful of Sean’s hair and turning his head, while Sean did the same, misunderstanding his movement for wanting a kiss. 

But they had moved in the same direction for different purposes, with him turning at the last second to avoid the peony, and so suddenly, and viciously, they croaked noses with each other.

Sean rocked backwards, letting go of his trousers to clamp his hands hard over his nose, one supported by the other.

Startled himself, he slowly released his grip on Sean’s hair, blinking, and brought his hand up to gently rub his nose. “Ow,” he felt compelled to say softly.

Sean was repressing a hard shudder, and standing very still. His eyes were squeezed shut and he was breathing in slow, long breaths.

“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly, placing his hand over Sean’s cupped ones.

Sean didn’t seem to be able to answer. And his pain didn’t seem to be subsiding. His poor baby looked like he had gotten the brunt of it. His skin had gone from a dark flush to a healthy pink.

”Aw,” he said softly, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close, to give him body warmth, which he knew could help in cases of shock.

But he also had to wonder how Sean could withstand injuries on the field. He was tempted to asked, but maybe this wasn’t the time. Sean didn’t seem in a place to talk.

His heart bumping madly in his chest, he leaned forward and lightly kissed his clasped hands, tasting faint traces of sugar and oats.

“I’m so sorry,” he said gently.

But Sean still couldn’t seem to reply. He gently made him remove his hands from his nose. “I’ll take care of it,” he promised.

Sean finally lowered his hands and gripped the back of his vest, his eyes still squeezed shut. 

Very softly, he blew warm air on his nose. And in slow degrees, he felt Sean’s body slackening, letting go of the pain. 

And Sean, very quietly, let out a long, hard breath.

First, very gently, kissing his nose, he lowered his lips and started kissing him on the mouth.

~*~

That night Holden slept like a baby.

There was no further talk of Alastair or Cecelia or what might happen come morning.

All he showed Holden, while icing his nose, was the back of Soirée’s book, and proof that they were just under the four-month mark but still good for time. They just had to get their tuxes and the rings, coordinate their best men, and organize their parents.

He stared at the back of Holden’s head at that last part while Holden, his head on his stomach, stared down at the pages and merely nodded. 

He told him they could pick up in a couple of days. Holden nodded again. Then turning, Holden kissed his stomach, laid his head back down, and was soon breathing softly in a trouble free sleep. He one-handedly brought the book over Holden’s sleeping form and closer to him.

From actually going to Miami and subsequently updating his in-laws to be about their wedding plans, he thought everybody had done well. Alastair, Holden, and even Cecelia and him. They were, as he had suggested to Holden that they accomplish, all now all on the same page. One yard at a time, they’d hit that touchdown zone, no question.

Setting the ice pack on the nightstand, he picked up from where he had left off in the wedding book. Probably the most appropriately named, not to mention, timeliest chapter ever: “Understanding the Team.” 

~*~


	4. Chapter 4

“So,” Elliot began. “Let me get this straight. You’re going to let him handle everything. Soirée, your wedding details, your parents, keeping you sexually satisfied, everything.”

“That’s not what I said at all,” he protested, looking at Craig. 

Then, not looking, as he immediately flashed on the new phone now in his brief but not supposed to exist.

“And meanwhile, didn’t you say he still has a schedule to keep in the spring and summer when he’s not playing football?”

“It’s called the offseason,” Craig said helpfully.

“Thank you, an offseason schedule he has to keep?”

“He knows how to talk to my parents,” he said, trying not to let his gaze flicker as he saw the even more concerned look Elliot gave him at that response. _They_ hadn’t talked about what Elliot’s conclusions were from what he had witnessed at the reception.

“I just need say a week in which _nothing happens,_ and I’ll be ready to take on this whole thing.”

“This whole thing?” Elliot asked, concernedly. 

“The wedding,” he said. “ _My_ wedding,” he quickly corrected, when Elliot only looked more troubled.

Forgetting the fear of giving anything away, he glanced at Craig for support. But Craig, on the opposite end of the couch from Elliot, was leafing through a magazine and wasn’t looking at him.

It was mid-morning, fifteen hours after he had gotten back from New York, and they had just finished a late breakfast in Petey’s office. Petey had assembled them via urgent text for something “Sean-related,” in reality known as wasting time, which was just the kind of mindless fun he could depend on Petey to deliver. 

Last night he had had his best night’s sleep in God knows long, and this morning he had had an equally invigorating front to front send-off in the shower. He wanted nothing more than to savor the respite he had bought for himself, and was in fact enjoying the break of not having to think about anything wedding related for a few days. 

To that end, he gave Elliot a pleading look, not in a place to handle Elliot judging him from, well, years of first hand knowledge, and hoping Elliot could see that.

“What about the tuxes? And the ring? And aren’t you going to Spain anymore? It’s three and a half months to your wedding, Holden.”

“I’ll be back to everything in a week. You know I can.”

Elliot drew his brows together and didn’t look less worried.

“As a supportive friend, which God and all his angles can bear witness you are, what would really help is if you held me to my mandate to let him handle my parents without me interfering. And if I forget, I need you to please remind me.”

Elliot leveled a probing gaze on him. “This is what you want,” he asked.

“Yes. Absolutely.”

When Elliot still looked like he wanted to add something, he lowered his gaze to the remnants of their breakfast on the coffee table and contemplated picking up a latte or something just to get Elliot’s eyes off him.

“Remember he told us Sean and Alastair get along?” Craig suddenly chipped in.

Elliot’s eyebrow raised thoughtfully. “True…” he said slowly. “So Sean is all for you and your parents working it through for the wedding?”

“Oh yeah.”

Elliot thought some more. Then with a small sigh, he said, “Okay. You know I’m all for it. And if at any time you want us to remind you of your agreement with him, just say the word.”

“Will do.”

And at that moment, thank God, Petey, blew into the office.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my _god,_ ” Petey wailed, crossing the room in a flash and sliding heatedly into the space between Craig and Elliot. “ _Look_ at this”

Craig put down his magazine and both he and Elliot sat forward to see what they had all been called for. Elliot had already acquired the glossy magazine from Petey and was fast leafing to page 76.

“Move over,” he said, going over.

“There’s no space,” Petey said without looking up. “Pull up a chair.”

“Oh, I don’t get to see?”

“You get to _touch._ Every night. Now pull up a chair and hush.”

He stared down at his friends. No one was looking at him. Hurriedly, he dragged over a chair and joined them.

Elliot had gotten to page 76 and was already ogling the picture of Sean in it, a photo which took up two thirds of the page.

“Oh my word,” Elliot said softly.

“Wait!” Petey suddenly cried, pushing the magazine closed. He clearly meant to savor every moment of it. They were now looking at the cover.

“Look at that,” Petey said softly, all but whining in pain. “He looks like what happens right before I come.”

“That is the hottest photo of him ever,” Elliot agreed, his eyes roaming the cover appreciatively . “H, I thought you said he didn’t interview for the article. Where’d they get these photos?”

He was needing a moment to respond. The photograph featured a mostly side view of Sean in a dark blue, formfitting sports jersey that bore a tiny NFL logo on the sleeve and contrasted strikingly with the color of his skin. 

Sean had his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and a typically small, unassuming smile on his face. He looked like the day they had first met. 

And he wanted to meet him all over again.

And as if all that wasn’t bad enough, he randomly realized that that was Anne’s same reserved smile and felt emotion washing over him he had to swallow.

Then doing a slight double take, he noticed that Elliot was waiting for him to answer.

“The AP licenses from the NFL,” he said. “And everyone else gets it from them. But can they do this though?” he asked, pointing at the cover. “Put him on the cover like he agreed to it? Isn’t that questionable?”

“I know, but…” Elliot muttered, back to staring at the photo. “I don’t know much about image licensing, but I’m not sure it’s illegal…”

“The title’s also pretty interesting,” Craig said.

“It certainly is,” Elliot replied. “I wonder what Alastair will think of it.”

“I think Cece’ll like it,” Petey said happily, sighing. Then he leaned over and flipped pages until they were back to page 76. “Good God,” he whispered.

They all hunched closer, staring at the insert photo of Sean, the one taking up most of the page with the article flowing around it.

It was slotted beneath a smaller, usual Getty Images one of his family at a benefit event, and was from the same photoshoot as the one on the cover. But this one was closer up and from a different angle. One that showed off the size of his chest and arms, and featured a more pensive look on his face.

They all stared reverently at it.

Petey sighed harder. “I love being gay.”

He glanced up to find Craig looking at him.

“You’re okay with these two drooling on pictures of him?”

“Don’t even,” Petey instantly said, cutting off anyone’s response. “Holden of _anyone_ knows how to keep it real. So let’s not even go there.”

“ _Shh!_ ” Elliot snapped, when Craig was about to respond. “Here goes,” and started reading the article aloud.

~*~

“What the heck happened to your nose?”

He sighed and pulled out a chair. “Wish I could even say you should see the other guy, but as usual he’s perfectly fine.”

Kara looked confused. Both at his purpling nose and at his response. The ice had kept down the swelling, but it looked fucked up.

Paula feigned surprise. “Why, I never took you for the kinky type, Sean. No, it’s cool,” she said expansively. “Just as long as you keep it to the offseason this time around.”

He grinned, sitting down. “I appreciate the heads up, boss.”

Kara’s eyes widened in alarm and uncertainty. Hastily lowering her eyes to her binder, she whispered, “Oh, my God.”

Paula sat back in her big office chair and laced her hands on her stomach, definitely in boss-mode. Waiting, so obviously, to hear what crap he had to feed her today.

He placed the folder he had brought with him—the one containing his marked-up schedule—on her desk, the original one of which was currently in Kara’s lap. A copy of it was also in front of Paula. But Paula’s fake happy smile hadn’t gone anywhere. She was looking at him all too knowingly.

“So what news do we have to share with each other today?” Paula asked brightly. “You first, Sean.”

“Actually, me first,” Kara said, turning to him, inadvertently screwing with Paula’s plot. “The Forbes article is out, although I haven’t read. But we did go over it yesterday and my staff should have coverage for you in email by now.”

“Got it,” he said, nodding once. He flicked a look at Paula.

Paula was still smiling, waiting for him, knowing that publicity trivialities, which she so grandly tolerated, wouldn’t protect him forever.

“Sean?” she then said encouragingly.

He scratched his beard. “Uh, well…”

Kara threw him a baffled look, her eyes shifting to his folder, still not picking up on what the problem was. 

Sitting forward, he rubbed the corner of his tender nose, wincing just a little. Might as well go for sympathy. 

He got no reaction from Paula. And Kara had shifted her eyes _away,_ not even trying to get caught noticing his possibly sex related injury.

But he had it all covered. He hoped.

Opening his folder, he left his schedule right where it was and carefully extracted two matte black envelopes, both engraved with the scripted W of the Wilsons. He handed one to each woman, standing up and reaching across the desk to place Paula’s in front of her. And then sat back down and waited.

Kara gasped and snatched hers up, quickly plucking out the invitation. Paula only shook her head in resignation.

“For goodness sake, Sean, please just tell me it’s not in July.”

He went back to rubbing his nose. “What, the honeymoon?”

Paula groaned loudly. Kara, however, gave him a seriously heartfelt look, like he had just said one of two things she had always wanted to hear. And it didn’t really even seem to matter that he was gay and ruining the fantasy. 

Which kind of surprised him, as he had never pegged her for the romantic type.

Paula’s groan had morphed into a growl of bloodlust. She sounded beyond frustrated.

“It’s only for three weeks,” he said soothingly.

“Three _weeks!_ What the fuck?! When the fuck are you ever gonna walk in here with some good news for me, Sean!”

“This is _great_ news.”

“I know,” Kara breathed earnestly. “Sean, this card is _beautiful._ Did you guys make it?”

“Ah, no.”

“Well, no, I don’t mean— I mean, you must have had a professional do it, of course. But did you guys pick the color scheme? It’s really bold. But I love it,” she added hastily. “It can be really hard even just picking colors, for say, you know— I don’t know, a Valentine’s Day party. And that’s just red and pink. But... it can’t be too red and pink, you know? I can’t imagine what it would be like to do it for a wedding…” Her lashes were fluttering and she seemed to be losing her breath. “I’ve— I’ve heard it can be difficult.”

She had stopped talking, having just noticed Paula’s incredulous expression. 

Tightly pursing her lips, she quickly and effortlessly switched back to pro. 

She held up the invitation and said, “The wedding is June twenty-fifth. Taking three weeks off will put him at a return-to-work date of July eleven. We’re good.” 

And with that she turned a commiserating look on him.

“We’re gonna have to cancel your June schedule though. But that’s stuff you don’t care for anyway, mostly interviews. Are you going to be—”

She had abruptly stopped, and was exploding in a blush

She looked scattered for a moment, then composed herself. “A-are you going to be good for the youth camp though?” she asked. “It’s following your— you know, so soon after you get back from, um—” She sat up and cleared her throat. “From, you know…”

“Fucking his brains out?”

Kara looked frozen in her chair. Then, to his utter amusement, she nodded. But her eyes were hard on him, as if afraid he might actually start explaining whether, and how, he intended to lose his brains to sex.

Whereas he was just jazzed that she was sympathetically fixing his schedule, no effort required from him. 

“I should be good,” he told her, adding with a straight face, “I don’t plan on doing anything I can’t recover from sexually.”

She fluttered her lashes at him. 

And he decided there and then that he might one day quiz Holden on how much he knew about publicity.

“No, Sean,” Paula said firmly. She had sat forward and placed her hands were on her desk. “Here’s what we’re looking at. Two years in a row of you not starting training on time. _June_ is when you start physical training. Not July, when you’re supposed to be already back in shape and doing OTAs. And definitely not August, when you’re supposed to be at goddamned training camp.”

“Aw, come on,” he groused. “I’m not that bad about it. When’re you gonna start showing me love again, Paula?”

“I’m not playing around with you, Sean. The press make a ton of noise when they don’t see you out there training like all the other quarterbacks. And some of the people complaining might even be your teammates. I don’t want the GM saying a god damned thing to me before the season even starts.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand if he’s getting married…”

“He couldn’t get married in the spring? Isn’t that what is spring for?”

Kara pressed her lips tight. Paula glared at him, then sat back.

“Sean, you’re aging me.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. Meanwhile Paula went on staring at him as if trying to figure out how to put the fear of God in him.

Just then, he noticed that she had her hair out of its usual ponytail and lying in soft waves around her head. She was wearing her usual gold hoop earrings but today had gone with a gleaming wine colored shade of lipstick.

He lowered his arm and smiled at her, feeling the skin on his bruised nose tighten with the effort.

“You look good today, Paula,” he said, indicating her hair. “You should wear your hair down more often.”

Kara’s mouth twitched.

Paula ignored him. She said instead, “Kar, what are we keeping and what are we losing? And don’t tell me about any fucking photoshoots for men’s underwear.”

Kara pursed her lips. He slowly, carefully, reached for his schedule and handed it to her. Kara took it and flipped it open. He could see her almost holding her breath as she scanned the pencil marks and highlights.

She cleared her throat. “He did a good job of protecting your interests, Paula. All the endorsement stuff is still here.”

“Who loves you, Paula Thomas?”

Paula only resignedly shook her head. “Enjoy your hours of fantasy playing house, Sean, because work’s coming for your lazy ass.”

“Yeah,” Kara said frankly, looking like she was wondering if anyone was in doubt. “Those photoshoots aren’t going to pose themselves.”

He repressed his chuckles. Then he watched as Paul self-righteously flipped her new hair, catching herself too late and quickly glancing to see whether he’d seen her do it.

He made a zipping motion across his lips. She completely ignored him.

—

Elliot had finished reading the article and now sat back with a look of perplexity.

The rest of them simply looked at each other.

“That was…really specific,” Petey said.

Elliot was nodding, his eyes locked on him. “And you said Sean didn’t give an interview?”

“I don’t think he did,” he said slowly, as besieged by the article. “They didn’t have a single new quote from him, and everything in there is from so-called close sources...”

Sean had interviews lined up for the spring, but aside from the Good Morning American one on Valentine’s Day, he hadn’t yet done a single one. 

When Petey’s text had informed him about the article, he had thought it would be the usual thing, profiling someone close to his family for the magazine’s issue. A couple years ago it had been Hanan. 

But this was something else.

“The level of detail is—”

“I know,” he agreed, looking at Elliot. “There’s stuff in there that...” he stopped and took a breath.

“I mean, I guess it’s great for Sean?” Petey asked. “It’s very all flattering.”

“And also very curated,” Craig said.

“To serve a very obvious purpose,” Elliot agreed.

There was hardly any need to analyze. It was obvious who was behind it. And why.

Keeping his eyes on the floor, he struggled against becoming newly aggravated. But he was even gladder that he had gotten the new phone. And even more certain that it wasn’t worth trying to save his feelings for his family.

His friends were discreetly giving him room to think. Craig back to reading the finance magazine, Elliot was perusing the article a little more closely, and Petey was daintily packing up their leftovers.

When he looked again, Elliot was watching him. 

“Asking this with all the love in my heart, H,” Elliot said gently. “But are you in need of any immediate reminders?”

He shook his head. 

Pulling out his phone, he tried Sean’s number. It rang without answer. He disconnected and sent him a text, simply asking whether he had seen the article in Forbes.

~*~


	5. Chapter 5

He was leaving Paula’s office building when his phone started ringing.

He checked to caller ID to see a name and number he had never seen light up his phone. He was getting a call from Mike Goodall.

Mike Goodall was the Commissioner of the NFL.

His heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t even aware that Goodall had his number, though all players stored it on their phones just in case.

He stared uncomprehendingly at the phone, trying not to think negative thoughts. Slowly, he unlocked the phone, then brought it up to his ear.

“Hello?” he said cautiously.

“Hi, Sean,” the voice said smoothly. “This is Mike Goodall. Hope I haven’t startled you.”

“Just a little, sir,” he admitted. 

On the tip of his tongue to immediately ask if everything was okay, he thankfully remembered that Paula had forbidden him from saying anything so stupid if he ever got a call from the commissioner.

“Hope you’re having a good day?” he asked instead.

“I am, thanks. Gearing up for what’s looking to be a great Draft.”

“Definitely, sir.”

And…?

His connection started bleeping. There was a second call coming in. He didn’t so much as pull away the phone to check it.

“I’m calling to say thanks for the invitation for my brother and me,” Goodall said, warm tones now underlying his voice. “It means a lot to both of us.”

“The honor’s ours, sir,” he said without missing a beat. “We hope both of you can make it?”

“We’ll probably be there,” Goodall said, in the typically understated manner that was his trademark. “Thanks again. And the article is excellent, by the way, Sean. Wish we had more of you in the NFL. It would do wonders for our image.”

“Thank you, Commissioner.”

He disconnected after Goodall and stood staring at his phone.

It was official. Holden was the best thing to ever happen to him. 

He’d _completely_ forgotten that Goodall’s brother was gay, that Goodall was extremely protective of him, and that the first player in history to come out doing so in Goodall’s administration might mean something to both of them.

Whereas, it had never crossed his mind to invite the commissioner of the NFL to his wedding. Why would it?

Then his addled brain cleared up. 

What article?

Remembering that he had missed a call, he pulled up his call log just as a couple of texts trilled in. The texts were from Holden. 

The first one read:

Have you see the article in Forbes?

And its accompaniment, _I’m not angry. I think. Call me when you get a chance._

He took a deep breath and headed for the parking garage.

— 

Inside the Navigator, he called Kara.

What was there to be upset about for an article Kara had barely responded to? And what was “excellent” about the same?

Kara, whom he had just left in Paula’s office, picked up on the first ring.

“Sean, I was just about to call you,” she said crisply.

“Did we miss something? Cause I just had a weird call from Mike Goodall, and Holden seems to think that—” 

“Sean, take a look at the piece and call me back. What they gave me for an advance copy was total nonsense. It’s not what they printed.”

Startled, he couldn’t find anything to say for a moment. Why would Forbes try something funny over a throwaway blurb about him?

“Is it bad?” he asked.

“No.”

And then she didn’t say anything else, and he knew that for a publicist, it wasn’t necessarily about that. He told her he’d call her back and disconnected.

In his email, he found that per routine, her office had sent him the full article, its summary, and the accompanying images.

The photos alone surprised him.

He was looking at a glamor shot of himself on the cover of Forbes, for an article for he hadn’t granted an interview, and whose contents his publicist had just told him she hadn’t been given any forewarning about.

He took in the two images, and then, most important, the title. 

Contemplatively, he rubbed his chin. Okay. 

Not yet reading any of it, he asked the Bluetooth to call back Kara, keeping the phone in his hand.

“I have no idea what Forbes is up to,” Kara said immediately. “I’m not even aware of where they got this information. _I’m_ not privy to some of it. Is it made up?”

He scrolled the bullet pointed summary her office had prepared. It was indeed information she wouldn’t be privy to. And it wasn’t made up. 

“I’ll take a look at it,” he told her. “It’s okay.”

“It’s by no means a bad article. It’s just— well, I’m not really sure what it’s _for._ ”

He scrolled up and looked at the title again. “I’m pretty sure what it’s for.” And who had done it. As apparently, was Holden. “I’ll call you later, Kara.”

“Okay, but wait. There’s more.”

He took a breath and listened.

—

On the way back to Holden’s condo he stopped by a newsstand and bought a copy of the magazine. 

He could only smile when the woman running the stand told him she thought he’d be over buying magazines with him on the cover to send home to mom by now.

And he waited until he was inside the condo to properly look at the title: _The Prince Consort - A Man to Do A Man’s Job._

He read it while standing in the living room balcony.

_Sean Jackson is a man not afraid to take up a challenge. He had taken a team whose chances of seeing a postseason had hovered around the floor for over a decade into four playoffs in six seasons. But if you’re not a football fan, you may remember him from last Valentine’s Day, when he took up the challenge to win back his confessed sweetheart by getting before the press and dropping a bombshell that’s still leaving some parts of the culture concussed a year later. And that sweetheart for whom he risked everything? Why, none other than the only son and heir to Forbes perennial Alastair Wilson. But with the dragons of the field and even of mainstream culture subdued, can Sean Jackson take on his next challenge, the beast of modern royalty._

And on and on it went in that fawning manner, small printed words relentlessly singing his praises.

Finished, he tossed the magazine on a side table.

Well, there it was. The elephant in the tea room at the Beverly Wilshire.

Mike Goodall was right. It was an excellent article.

Cecelia had picked up Holden’s gauntlet.

Asked to judge her effort in ensuring that her rich society circles bowed before the newest incoming member of their club, he’d say her effort was a hundred percent successful. Going by that drivel, even he was impressed by what an amazing guy he was.

He had been more astute than he realized sitting on his patio that afternoon in Malibu. He _didn’t_ know this game. And quite frankly the realization unsettled him.

Glancing again at that overtly “he’s a football player but look how well he cleans up” cover, he realized she was playing the long game. And that she was damn good at it.

Adding to the revelations Kara had passed on to him, an already tenuous situation was showing itself to only be warming up. 

He’d thought bad was the limit. He had forgotten worse. But now he supposed the sky was the limit.

~*~

Sean met him later that evening at a cocktail party he was attending in Beverly Hills.

They had talked earlier that day, and he had assured him again that he wasn’t upset, that he just wanted to see him.

Sean, it seemed, was nevertheless going for neutral ground, as nothing less than avoiding a repeat of their last takeout night would have brought Sean out to a Beverly Hills estate party.

He himself was there for work, he and Craig having come straight from the office, the venue being the home of one of the West Coast JP Morgan bankers. Sean walked into the library sometime after eight p.m., causing a near incident by the doors.

There was a sudden filling up of people toward the entrance, impeding Sean’s movement and raising the buzz of conversation noticeably. He was on the opposite side of the room, watching it all happen.

Sean didn’t seem to notice the commotion, his gaze sweeping the room and instantly locking on him, as if in a game of “where’s Holden.” Sean started over upon seeing him.

But Sean didn’t seem to get it. Evidently, most everyone had seen the treacly article show up in their email that afternoon, because the wide-eyed interest was brand new, and the level and intensity of the murmuring was practically generating a halo. Sean was still slowly trying to make his way across the room, but at every step was accosted by smiling guests. Somewhere in the center, he was stopped altogether and spent time returning handshakes and collecting business cards.

Last year it had been the feeling of an outsider trying to fit into their ranks. Now, with his mother’s unauthorized revelations, there was a generally projected feeling of “one of us.”

“Oh, he’s always been into philanthropy,” he heard someone close to him whispering and resisted looking to see.

He wondered whether, were it not for the circumstances, he might have found it a bit amusing. 

Sean appeared to just be bearing it. And probably wishing he could amend his official complaint about cocktail parties, which was that people stood around pointing and whispering about you, but felt it beneath them to walk up and say hello. 

He saw a couple of guests tap curiously at their noses as they talked to him, to which Sean said something in casual dismissal. The bruise was already taking a bluish color, and within a day or two would be almost invisible. A miracle compared to his which had lasted almost a week.

“Sean’s here?”

He turned to find the land surveyor he was supposed to be talking with, but had stopped in favor of watching Sean’s progress, long gone, and Craig standing in her place. Craig had his hands in his pockets and his eyes on Sean’s approach.

“Yeah,” he said, finding, not too surprisingly, that in spite of his reservations over Petey and Elliot, he wasn’t all that concerned about introducing Craig to Sean.

Craig nodded.

Sean had freed himself and at last reached them, warming his back as he placed his hand there, and greeting him with his usual, “Hi, sweetheart,” before dropping a kiss on his cheek.

From the corner of his eye he saw Craig watching them attentively, as though he was seeing something revelatory.

When Sean straightened from him, he turned to him, and said, “Sean, this is Craig. He handles finance at the firm.”

“Hey, how’s it going.”

“It’s going great, thanks.”

Then Craig just stood there and stared with immense interest at Sean. As in, very obviously.

“Nice to finally meet you,” Craig said to Sean, and then with a gesture of his head, “Holden hardly ever says anything about you.”

Sean stared back for a second. Craig had said it like delivering the best compliment in the world. A tiny smile pulled at Sean’s mouth. 

Sean pointed a finger at him. “Can I steal him for a minute?”

“Go for it.”

“Thanks.”

Sean led the way towards an outdoor patio. He glanced over his shoulder as they exited.

“I think I like that guy,” Sean said.

He almost rolled his eyes. What a shocker.

—

They found a stone bench behind large plants, and he stood while Sean sat with his arms folded across his knees. Sean still looked a bit wary about being in the place, like someone might come up and claim his time again.

But he himself harbored a soft spot for being at cocktail parities with Sean. After all, they had met at one. 

Even last summer, while Sean had fumed at the lackluster manner in which had been trying to distance himself from his family’s traditions, he had been busy making an all out effort to look his best at each turn, in the hopes of re-catching Sean’s eye.

He remembered wanting to run his hands through his hair, make him kiss him right there in the middle of the parties like Sean had done the evening they had fêted his foundation.

He brought his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

Tone even, Sean began to talk. He began by telling him he understood what his mother had done and that he accepted why she had done it.

It was more or less the conciliatory stance he had expected from Sean.

“You’re right that it’s always about control,” Sean said. “It’s actually amazing how long that pole can be.”

He said nothing, and Sean went on to tell him that according to what Kara had told him, there was more coming. 

Exclusive all-access permission to the wedding for Vanity Fair, the Robb Report to do a feature on the venue, Forbes of course, and even Plane & Pilot to feature the private planes to be used to transport the guests.

He listened to all of it with a feeling of being completely outside his body. It had to be someone else’s wedding he was hearing such things about, not his.

When Marissa had asked for a theme for their wedding, he hadn’t been thinking: “showcase.” And when he had been lazing about in their love nest last summer in Malibu, dreaming of a fun ceremony with everyone on the planet he had ever met, he hadn’t been thinking of seeing it lifelessly slicked on the pages of several glossy magazines.

And yet maybe he should have.

Sean had stopped talking and when he glanced over, he found him, as he had expected, closely watching him.

“How did she know half the things about me in the article? Like the stuff about the old timers in Johnston?”

“She’s been having you investigated,” he said, as dispassionately as he could. “They have all of them investigated.”

He found it too embarrassing to look Sean straight in the eye. It was something he had grown up with, but he was surprised at how much it hurt to even say it now. It had never dawned on him how invasive such a thing could be.

“It’s just a precaution,” he added inadequately.

Sean sat back on the bench and placed his arm along its back, his light eyes burning into him. “I figured. And it’s okay. It’s either them or reporters, right?”

He said nothing.

“So now what?” he asked quietly.

Sean reached for him and took his hand, and held on to it. 

“Now we go to Bel Air. We have to negotiate a truce with them.”

He listened for his jumbled, rising feelings. This was Sean. And for Sean, this was family. This was what he had committed to.

When he continued to feel nothing but a strange sense of calm, he simply nodded and said, “Okay.”

Sean stroked his thumb across the back of his hand, continuing to watch him. His eyes were equally slow-moving over his face.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?”

He smiled. “So I’ve been told.”

“Who’s been telling you that?”

He smiled a little more, looking down at his feet, praying, silently praying he wasn’t about to do a stupid thing.

Sean began slowly pulling him towards him, until he was sitting next to him on the bench. Sean then turned and faced him, the garden lights catching the calm notes in his eyes.

“We’ll get through this.”

He nodded.

Sean was quiet as well. And after observing his non-reaction for a while, he lifted a hand and slowly traced his thumb across his lip.

“You wanna try and break my nose again?” Sean asked softly.

He could only shake his head. He spared him an indulgent look. “And here I was thinking I’d join you for aromatherapy tonight. Now I think I’ll just go to bed.”

“Lucky for you that’s the same thing.”

When he stole another look, Sean was staring doe-eyed at him. Then, putting a slight furrow in his brow, Sean asked, “What were we talking about again?”

He did his best and curbed his smile. “Why am I worried that you’ve figured out how to make me do whatever you want?”

“That’ll be the day.” But he was blinking at him like they were alone together.

Then Sean moved up and kissed his temple, before sighing and relaxing back against the bench. His arm across the back curled around his shoulder, coming to a rest against his nape. Sean looked around them. 

At the relative quiet of the garden, at the busy party interior of the library. 

“Offseason’s here, huh,” Sean said, mostly to himself.

He snorted quietly under his breath, smiling at the dread in Sean’s tone. 

But yes, the offseason was here.

He took Sean’s free hand and laced their fingers together, setting their hands on his leg while Sean trailed circles in the hair at his nape.

He had followed his light all the way here. He loved him and he trusted him, and he would do all the things he said were right.

~*~

_Part 16 - coming soon!_


End file.
